


One Tree's Wisdom

by 99BottlesOfBeerOnTheWall



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Feels, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I'm just numbing my own pain ok?!, Kiki and a fucking tree have a therapy session, Spoilers, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 22:34:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13668696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/99BottlesOfBeerOnTheWall/pseuds/99BottlesOfBeerOnTheWall
Summary: What are you supposed to do when you've lost the love of your life? That's the problem Keyleth is facing, and strangely, the Sun Tree might have some answers...





	One Tree's Wisdom

**Author's Note:**

> If you're looking for anything other than pain, then by God, don't look for it here.

Keyleth doesn’t know why she’s here.

(Why is any of it still here? So callous, so cruel, so cold…it still goes on without him…)

The walls breathe memories, and that’s the painful part. Vampires, and Rebellions; Heroes, and Heretics; Blood, and Glory. They slept just here, rested for a moment, and Keyleth can even mark the place where she laid her head. Scanlan decided to piss in the middle of battle, and the dark stained flourish of his name is still stenciled across the dirt in her memory, though the stream has dried up long ago. It seems such an aching distance, really little more than a year, maybe two. Time moves so quickly, it feels like a life time…

(Time moves so slow, how will the ages ache without him…)

She doesn’t know why she’s here, but that doesn’t change the fact that here she stands. The earth is cool around her, the hum of it’s growth just out of ear shot, just out of reach. Before her the twisted roots of the Tree are dark and vibrant, swollen and firm with pulsing life. And it’s stupid to feel so fond, of something that is so inanimate and unmoving. But standing here now feels like standing with a friend, coming back to a companion you left long ago. He’s just the same, still unchanged, still unmoved, still growing, still drinking. He’s always been here.

(He won’t know anything.)

She reaches out to wrap a hand around the root. It’s got a mark, charred and black, where she accidentally scorched it with her Sunbeam. The mark is black, and she can slot her hand in it’s pattern. Like she’ll always be here, and never can leave. The life tingles through her fingers, and she feels the Tree respond. It’s like static, but longer, a spark of connectivity that lingers, that jumps between them and glows without fading.

(He always was just a tree…)

“Sun Tree?”

_“Heeeey Keyleth…”_

“Hi…” She say’s again, because she can’t think of anything else to say. And they only have ten minutes, only a moment, but here she is wasting it with wordless confusion.

_“Buddy…ya seem kinda down…I didn’t know the world could get to good ol’ Kiki! What’s goin’ on with that?”_

“I don’t—“ The words end there. She can’t say anything more, she’s got nothing left.

(Shouldn’t have come…)

_“You wanna talk about it?”_

”Sun Tree?”

_“Yeah…”_

“Have you ever lost anyone?”

(The face in her mind, it flashes through, it aches. So dark, but so, so beloved. It’s crystal clear, and as sharp as a knife. God why can she see him like that?)

“What am I talking about, I mean, you’re just a tree…sorry that was stupid…”

_“I’ve lost a lotta people Kiki…People I loved, people I lived for…We all lose somethin’ don’t we?”_

“What do you mean?” She’s silent for a minute, forming the question in her mind, and the tree waits…he’s good like that…and finally it comes to the surface “—who did you loose Sun Tree?”

It’s less of an answer, more of a picture that she sees. _A little vine that grew on my bark, that curled and mingled with me. A little bird that would sit and would sing, and it came every year, until the summer it didn’t. A little girl that climbed in my branches, an old woman that she grew up to be. The Woodcutter’s Son, who loved a young maiden, and took her to wife in the shade of my leaves. Faces past counting, all silent and separate, but watched all the same, that came and went while I grew. Their lives are so short they pass in a moment…A Lord, and a Lady, the last of their breed, and the bodies of their children, five in all told that were hanging in nooses from me. I watched them by day, and mourned them by night, and their blood dripped on my leaves…_

“Wow…” Keyleth whispers. And such pain shouldn’t be comforting, but its companionship is undeniable.

_“Yeah…It’s a lot…”_

“How do you go on? How can you live with it? I couldn’t bear it…” She gasps, because the pain is sharp, and it lingers like too much salt on the tongue.

_“That’s what you Humans always miss, you don’t live long enough to see…it isn’t sad because you get it all back…”_ He sounds almost serious for once, voice still gentle, but almost sober. It’s strange, but it makes him sound like he knows what he’s saying. _“The world never takes without giving in return. It’s all a balance.”_

“I don’t know if that’s true…” Keyleth whispers, it prickles in her throat, and stings in her eyes, and she drops her head down till her orange hair hides her face.

(Because nothing could ever replace him.)

The response is a picture again, as forceable and vivid as the first, flashing before her eyes while she sits unable to prevent it. _A wild flower grows in my roots, and I watch as it blooms in the sun. The wind rushes in my leaves, all consuming, ever lasting, telling tales of the things I can’t see. An encampment of pilgrims has become a small village, a small town, a small city. The people they surround me, the children they climb me, the bustle of life all I see. All the years that I watch them, they continue, the memory will outlive me. A new lord rules, a new life blooms, I feel the life in me again…a freckled young face, with green in her eyes like a woodland hall, and a spirit of fire as bright as the flame of her hair. She’s so young still, a sapling still sweet. She’s a tree just begun to grow old…_

The image of her own face lingers, reflected in her memory, like seeing herself for the first time. So much more vivid than a reflection, or an image in a mirror. It’s something sharp, and living, a breathing thing that feels like its own entity.

“Sun Tree…” She reproaches, because his words can’t be true, and she can’t accept such flattery.

_“You’re going to be like me someday.”_ And it isn’t a question. Because people have one kind of insight, and nature has another. The length of her days, the ageless aura, is as visibly perceptible to him, as the warmth of her skin would be to an ordinary person. _“You have a long time to grow and learn still. And I know one day you’re going to understand. Maybe you don’t right now, but that’s ok, it’ll all happen in it’s own time.”_

“I don’t know how I’m going to stay sane…” Keyleth confesses.

_“It’s not so hard as you’d think, finding new things to live for. Just think of all the riches I have.”_ The tree reassures with such perfect conviction, that it’s almost disheartening. _“As time goes on, the little things start to become more important. Every day has it’s own little richness, ever season brings its own little change. Mother Nature’s pretty vast Kiki, there will always be something new growing somewhere.”_

“But I don’t want to grow richer!” Keyleth finally snaps.

(His face is reproachful in her mind, clawing her with bitter resentment, but she can’t turn the guilt aside, because it’s from her own heart the reproachful whispers come).

“I don’t want to just keep living, until I absolutely have to die. I don’t want to keep dragging on, until it doesn’t have a meaning anymore. I don’t want to outlive my own fucking Dad…” the words halt there, blocked by another truth, one seated so deep it hurts to bring it up. And when she gives it a voice, it cuts so deep into her throat that it brings the tears and she sobs. Deep and hard, and down where it aches to make such a sound. “I don’t want to keep living without him…as I could just forget him…”

(Never could forget him.)

_“You’ve learned a lot about pain Kiki.”_ The tree says, and it sounds so deeply sad, her own grief seems almost childish. It’s a bottomless pit she’s faced with again, so much deeper and richer than herself. It’s the timeless watching of an ancient tree, that’s outlived hundreds of loved ones already. _“But if all you ever think about is the loss, that’s all you’re ever going to see. There’s so much more to look at out there buddy! If you never let yourself fall in love, it wouldn’t hurt to love like it does right now, but you also never would have had all the bliss that came with it too…”_

She doesn’t have an answer, and she doesn’t try to make one. This is not the time. After all, the tree waited for her to make up her mind…He’s good at that…so she might as well wait for him too. This is the time to listen and learn, and she knows it, deep down where the pain aches. Because people have one kind of insight, and Nature has another, and the wisdom of this ancient being is as clear to her as it is invisible to others.

_“I’m not gonna lie Keyleth,”_ and for a moment that old relaxed persona breaks through. It made her laugh at first, now it makes her respect him more than ever. He’s lost so much, learned so deeply, but still finds it in him to pal around like a Bro. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever achieve that kind of lightness. _“You’re going to loose a lot. I said Nature was a balance, and you never get something without loosing a little too. But that’s not what you focus on…I mean, the more you loose the richer you get. And that’s the kind of thing you want to focus on: how much you gain in return.”_

“Is that what keeps you growing Sun Tree?” she murmurs, trying to push all her affection and love through the inanimate bark of the tree.

_“I’ve got a lot to be thankful for, bud; a lot to keep me going.”_ The Sun Tree says, and she can feel his fulfillment through his words, a well of happiness that mirrors the pit of sorrow just as deeply. _“After all, I met you, and that’s a gift in itself. I remember every single thing I ever lost, and I’m thankful for them, because they make me better now.”_

“I’m glad I met you too Sun Tree.” Keyleth murmurs with tentative cheerfulness. It feels half like blasphemy, to let a smile come. As if she’s forgetting him too soon, growing callous and cold. But the Sun Tree answers her, before her thoughts can drift any farther, his voice speaking like a rustle of leaves in her mind.

_“He’d want you to be happy…”_

Another image comes, and she recognizes the moment. It’s such a little thing: one afternoon when she insisted on bringing Vax to have a picnic under the Sun Tree. _A day full of greens and golds, a summer in reflected memory. The two of them together, boy and a girl, a druid and a rogue, both of them heroes, but they’re mere children still. He looks so happy, and she looks so blooming, and I can’t get them out of my mind. It’s a perfect puzzle piece, where she makes him laugh, and he makes her loving. They talked and they joked, and I sighed and I listened, and I gave them the shade of my kind._

_“Think of him, and be happy.”_ The Sun Tree instructs, while she sits silent and listens. _“He taught you how to love, don’t let grief make you forget…”_

For a moment they’re both silent, nothing left to say, and Keyleth can feel her time running out. The spell is almost over, and she thinks back over what they said. He’s just a tree, but really, she’s turning into a bit of a tree too. Granted one that can talk and move.

“You’re really awesome Sun Tree,” she says, though she’s told him before.

_“Same goes to you Girl.”_ And she feels his consciousness meet her hand in a spiritual fist bump.

“I really needed this…” she admits, and it still hurts to think about it, but in a different way than before, and his advice makes it easier to let the fresh pain go. “Thanks for the advice.”

_“Any time! I’m always here buddy…”_ The Sun Tree says, all the warmth and relaxation of a lazy summer afternoon in his words. _“With Kiki around, no one could be sad…”_

The spell fades, and she’s left staring at the twisted roots of the tree.

It’s both less and more than what she was seeking. The pain is still there, but it’s easier to carry. She hasn’t found anything to replace him, but she’s found new things to enjoy. There is no way to overcome grief, but maybe there’s something to balance the scales.

Slowly she makes her way out of the tunnel, back into the world, that can still seem dismally dingy and gray. But the tree’s words linger, and when she returns to Zephra, she carries a piece of him too. Maybe he’ll grow, in her home, close to her; or maybe it will be a new voice she hears. But either way, she plants him, and grows him, and waits for the voice to appear.

The years are still long, but there’s life to fill them up. A village to attend, a rift to protect, a voice she’s waiting to find. The old Sun Tree grows and survives, until one day it’s life ends at last. A storm takes Whitestone, a storm tears him down, and Keyleth mourns her last friend. The others are gone, and that aches, but she’s found there’s always something new to fill her time. And as years go on, and the new Sun Tree grows, she finds a new younger voice to call Friend. Because truly, the tree was right, and you can be sure: wherever an old life ends, somewhere a new life begins.


End file.
